The business of Drupal
Murray Woodman
cruncht.com
Aims
- The busines of software
- A look at the GPL
- Scalable approaches
- Skills approach
- Drupal ecosystem
- The app store
- Conclusions
The black swan
Scalable jobs
- Wild randomness
- Few winners, many losers
- Rockstar, writer, speculator, fraudster
- "small number of giants and a huge number of dwarves"
- NB. Software authors are "writers"!
Non-scalable jobs
- Mild randomness
- Predictable bell curve of outcomes
- Dentist, baker, doctor, prostitute
- "the mediocre is collectively consequential"
- NB. Web developers are prostitues (thanks Marji :).
Hit the big time
NNT's advice
A scalable profession is good only if you are successful; they are more competitive, produce monstrous inequalities and are far more random.
The Black Swan, p28
- Take non-scalable jobs
- But expose yourself to some positive rare events
Business of software
Two basic models.
- Products
- Services
- Hybrid
Products
- Identical, shrink wrapped, downloadable
- Operating systems, office software
- Microsoft, Apple
- Minimal cost to replicate
- Scalable
- Irregular
Services
- Custom, bespoke
- Consulting companies
- IBM, Redhat
- Expensive to replicate, labour
- Not scalable
- Regular
Move to hybrid model
- Product companies provide services for income
- Service companies standardize: generic solutions
- Outcome is mix regular income and super profits
GPL
- Drupal licensed under GPL2+
- Modules and themes are derivative works
- Source code needs to be provided (under GPL) if distributed
GPL and drupal.org
We require that all files (PHP, JavaScript, images, Flash, etc.) hosted on Drupal.org be under the GPL.
http://drupal.org/licensing/faq/
What doesn't the GPL cover
- "Mere" data - possibly PHP settings files
- Images, CSS, flash, movies
- Documentation, configuration
- Software as a service
GPL and Products
- What's the big deal?
- GPL effectively stops us selling software purely as a product
- Limits our ability to scale revenue
- Excluded from gaining access to scalable jobs
- Need to find other ways
What alternatives are there?
- Employment
- Pure services
- GPL products with services
- Drupal hosting platform
- Drupal as a service
- Software as a service
- Products with non GPL components
- Products with no GPL components
1. Employment
- Employment at Drupal shop or company
- Income limited by salary (skill, experience)
- Non scalable
- Very regular
2. Pure services
- Contractors, Drupal shops, F2F training
- Cross Functional, Previous Next
- Income limited by incoming jobs (supply) and staff
- Non scalable due to staffing requirements
- Variable regularity, no subscriptions
3. GPL products with services
- Distribution owners, module authors
- Phase2, Ubercart
- Income limited by product popularity and staff
- Non scalable due to staffing requirements
- Variable regularity
4. Drupal hosting platform
- Drupal hosting
- Acquia Dev Cloud, Managed Cloud, Chapter Three Pantheon, Omega8cc Aegir
- Overhead of maintaining platform - Aegir
- Scalable
- Regular
5. Drupal as a service (DaaS)
- Drupal running as a SaaS
- Drupal Gardens, Buzzr, wordpress.com
- Overhead of maintaining platform
- Scalable
- Regular
6. Software as a service (Saas)
- Service accessed via bridge module.
- Mollom, Acquia Solr
- Overhead of maintaining platform
- Scalable
- Regular
7. Products with some non GPL code
- Themes
- Top Notch Themes
- Overhead of deloping product
- Scalable
- Irregular
- Problem: Is the main IP in the code or the images?
eg. Non GPL components
“Licensed Works” means those Theme elements that are separate works not derived from or dependent on Drupal or any other GPL works, that therefore fall outside the GPL, that are created and owned by Collective Mind or other parties, and that are considered licensed to Licensee through this Agreement, including, but not limited to graphics, stylesheets (CSS files), mockups, photographs, and documentation.
http://fusiondrupalthemes.com/license
8. Products with all non GPL code
- Online training, documentation, books
- Lullabot drupalize.me
- Overhead of deloping product
- Scalable (online training)
- (Ir)regular
It's not all about scalability!
- Service providers (contractors) can scale up, not out
- Develop skills and expertise
- Find your niche
- Leverage domain knowledge
- Increase hourly rate
Improve skill
Holes in the Drupal market
- Data migration: Data is like wine, code like fish
- Theming: Where are the themers?
- Custom module development
- Project scoping
- Verticals: distros
- Server admin, deployment (?)
- Performance (?)
State of play in Drupal
- Acquia
- Development Seed
- Phase2
- Top Notch Themes
1. Acquia
- Attacking on all fronts
- Products and services
- Emphasis on scalable services
2. Development Seed
- A fine product company: "We build tools..."
- Supporting with services on the side
- Trademarks to distros purchased by Phase 2.
- Fine products are not enough.
3. Phase2
- A hybrid company: "we design, develop & support"
- Standardized distributions with support, ie. hybrid
- Achieve scale through distros
- The way of the future for Drupal shops
4. Top Notch Themes
- Focus on scalable products
- Backed up by services, ie. hybrid
- Good mix.
- A great model
App store?
- Lot of talk in the community
- Feeling that developers should be rewarded
- But how?
How to remunerate developers?
- Tip jars: people don't give
- Buy products: GPL problem
- Service providers give cut
My take on it
- DaaS and SaaS will be the conduits
- Apps (distros, modules, themes) will be on a subscription
- Developers may be rewarded if close relationship with service providers
- Service provider is collecting the $. Box seat.
Takeaways...
Bank on regularity
- Employment, contracting and consulting are much more reliable
- Attain skills
- Work hard
- Become Drupal rockstars and profit
Some wild randomness
- Startups
- Vertical applications, themes
- Online training, helper services
- Maybe you will hit the big time
That's it!
Thanks for being such a wonderful audience.